Western Province Downhill Round 3 - Jonkershoek

Round 3 of the 2017 Western Province Downhill series took place the past weekend at Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch.

After a 2 month long break without racing, downhill riders from all over Cape Town geared up and headed for Stellenbosch to take on the ever popular Jonkershoek track. It would be the same track as used in the past few years, with no real changes or additions introduced. With Saturday's practice seeing a long day of shuttle runs, track conditions deteriorated significantly, leaving sections of the track blown out and very loose. This made it more challenging that usual to maintain speed, which is crucial for this track. The severe lack of moisture, due to this record-breaking drought we are experiencing in the Western Cape, meant that race day was a somewhat dry and dusty affair. The race format as per usual, consisted of 3 hours shuttled practice, which was followed by a timed seeding run and then the final race run to wrap up the day.

Nevertheless, attendance was good and the racing tight as usual as Adi van der Merwe, Theo Erlangsen, and Roman Kumpers kept it pinned to take the top 3 spots respectively. Van der Merwe put in a time of 02:23.016, edging out Erlangsen by just 1.5 seconds over the 1.4 km track. The rest of the podium was rounded off by James Coetzer and Niko Velasco (1st in the Junior men category) making it 3 out of 5 for the YT Industries crew. Rika Olivier was the fastest female rider down the track with a time of 02:55.287, placing 24th overall.

Matt van Galen - 7h | 02:33.477

Jasper Barrett - 6th | 02:33.055

James Coetzer - 4th | 02:29.791

My quali run was quite clean, nothing too spectacular. Looking at the timed results, I was surprised to be that close to Theo as he has been quick on this track in the past. Race run felt really good, with a clean run and no mistakes. If Theo had the run that he did, and didn't crash, he would have had a few seconds on me.
Adi van der Merwe | 1st